OPINION: Both Victoria and New South Wales have recently allocated money in their annual budgets for grain carrying branch lines in their states, but South Australian (and Western Australian) farmers have not been so fortunate.
Bulk grain handler and marketer Viterra has confirmed its previously announced intention to cease using rail for the transport of grain over the two remaining South Australian Mallee branch lines, to Loxton and Pinnaroo, from the 1 August this year.
The original announcement was made in early 2014, but was postponed for the last grain season while money was sought from the SA government to improve local roads to cope with the increase in heavy grain trucks that will result from the shift to road.
There had been some hope in recent months that the main parties concerned, Viterra, rail operator Genesee & Wyoming Australia (GWA) and the South Australian state Government would sit down and work through the related issues to see the traffic retained on rail, but alas that appears to have been in vain.
The decision means that for the first time in some 150 years, South Australia will have no branch lines other than the isolated 1067mm lines on the Eyre Peninsula.
It brings to a close a rundown of state infrastructure assets that commenced during the federally owned Australian National era in the early 1980s and that has slowly continued during the post-1997 privatisation era under the auspices of GWA and its various incarnations.
In the late 1990s there had been some optimism that privatisation would breathe new life into the state’s rail network and that the extensive US shortline experience brought to these shores by the likes of G & W, might have secured a better future for our branch lines.
Alas it was not to be and as grain receivals have consolidated to larger sites and road transport continues to a get a free ride in relation to damage done to rural roads, line by line the former South Australian Railways network has continued to shrink to the point of oblivion.
It is worth remembering that only 18 years ago several studies convinced the state and federal governments of the day that both these lines were worth converting from broad to standard gauge, at the expense of losing the Mount Gambier line, when Melbourne to Adelaide interstate track was gauge converted.
How have the figures change so quickly over such a relatively short space of time, and are the faceless men who make these decisions today going to look back in another 18 year’s time and say “Oops we got it wrong again”?
Talking to The Stock Journal, Viterra group commercial manager Andrew Hannon says the move was “the most efficient and cost-effective supply chain for Mallee grain growers”.
Grain Producers SA chairman Garry Hansen told The Stock Journal that GPSA would closely monitor Viterra’s supply chain costs after August 1.
“Supply chain costs have increased substantially in the past 10 years, and we are still pushing for an inquiry into this, but we have been assured by Viterra the freight differentials will not go against growers,” he said.
Good luck with that one Garry. Come back and let’s have a chat in ten year time and see how far you got with those aspirations.
GPSA says it will also be calling on the state and federal governments for more funding to fix Mallee roads to take on the extra road freight, estimated at 3000 B-double truck movements annually and perhaps even upgrade to allow road train use.
A spokesperson for Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan said in the past 12 months, the state government had invested more than $4m in road infrastructure in the region to account for the anticipated increase in freight on local Mallee roads.
Anyone who has travelled any of these roads, especially to and from Loxton, would agree that this figure is only a drop in the ocean and is unlikely to alleviate the condition of the road to any great extent, and of course does not take into account increased ongoing road maintenance costs.
While local farmers and councils are already screaming for more road funding, no-one has answered the question as to how much GWA would require for these rail lines to be maintained in an adequate condition to move the harvest?
I’m sure the cost of upgrading some of those local roads to accommodate road trains would be considerably more expensive than installing concrete sleepers and a full upgrade for both branches Garry – not that they need that much work.
I’m not convinced as to why the SA taxpayers should be over subsidising the Mallee farmers, Vittera and the road transport industry when a more economic solution exists?
Rather than managing the sector, we privatised. Now we ratepayers and taxpayers all paying for it.